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Grand Theft Auto IV vs Persona 4 vs Street Fighter IV vs Super Smash Bros. Brawl 2009
Results Round One Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 Ulti's Analysis SO MANY FOURS. And oh lovely, the 2007-2009 division. So much whining pre-contest about how these games all sucked compared to past divisions. I didn't bother hopping on that train, because I haven't played a lot of these games yet. I mean sure I hated Brawl and a ton of these games are sequels and rehashes, but I loved Portal and MGS4 and I'm told I'll love BioShock and Fallout 3 and Persona 4. Just at a cursory glance, you have a few great games, a lot of good games and a lot of crap. Isn't that any gaming generation, really? Anyhoo, this was a fun match. Brawl > GTA4 was the easy pick here, though some people figured Street Fighter 4's recent release and well-done online would help it threaten a dying GTA series. Yeah, no. Yeeah.... no. Yeeeeeeeah noooooo, yeeeeeah noooooooooooo. Street Fighter 4 turned out so weak that it provided us with the most entertaining fight for third place we'll ever see. But more on that in a second. Brawl > GTA4 was the easy pick, but Brawl dominating the hell out of this match took a lot of people by surprise given the mixed reviews it's gotten. Well mixed on Board 8 and among some the Melee tournament people, anyway. I say some of the Melee tournament people for a reason, since the stereotype is really stupid. Believe it or not, it isn't just tourneycrabs whining about Brawl not being Melee. Most of the Melee pros actually moved on to Brawl and are having a grand old time. Regardless, Brawl dominated the hell out of this match, GTA4 scored an easy second place and Street Fighter 4 embarrassed itself in any way you can think of. It was one of the six replacements in the bracket, and it came out and.... sucked. It was in last place for over an hour, to a cult game that sold like 19 copies. I'd love to give Street Fighter some credit for fighting back from an early last place, then stalling for hours, then fighting back from down 300, then being pretty much tied for hours, and then ultimately coming back again in the final two hours to "win", but I can't. I know Board 8 loves Persona 4 and all, but let's be honest about its contest strength. It has none. Street Fighter 4 having to fight back three times to avoid scoring last place at the hands of Persona 4, when some were expecting a second place finish, is about as sad as it gets. Galaxy ended up the biggest bomb of the contest without question, but I'd argue this very match featured the most disappointing entrant. By the way, this match proved once and for all that Board 8's fabled last-minute rallying power is irrelevant; all the big last-minute pushes clearly come from the collective whole, not a couple of people on one board. You people couldn't find 8 more votes to save your latest fad? Against a game that was in the poll with two hands around its own neck? Really? You guys more or less lost to the Mets. Match Trends Ngamer's Same Day Analysis Match Prediction The written word can't possibly describe the venom I'm feeling for GTA right now. I was shocked to the core by that pathetic GotY showing three months back and decided to bet against this series every time the bracket gave me a chance... yet even heading in with that mindset I had no choice but to take San Andreas for first place, and how does GTA thank me? A 4th place finish! At least betting against GTA3 worked out for me, but even then I'd never in a million years have expected it to get smacked in the mouth by KotOR of all things. So I was down on GTA heading into this year, am even more down on them after seeing these three results, and I'm 100% confident that GTA4 is the weakest of the series. ...and yet I'm still backing it for 2nd place. WHAT? Sorry. I'd love to take SF4, and in more balanced 4pack (like if Brawl were replaced with Halo 3 for instance) I would jump at the opportunity, but it just seems to me that a Smash Bros. opponent is the worst possible draw for anything Street Fighter. From my experience nearly all older gamers cut their teeth on fighters with some variant of SF2, fell away from the genre after a few years when it didn't do anything new, then were drawn back in earlier this decade thanks to SSB's casual-friendly appeal. And as for the younger gamers who weren't old enough to have experienced SF2 back in its prime, well... I somehow doubt many of them spent the $60 on SF4, while probably ALL of them have played some Brawl and/or GTA4. I mean, not even the MATCH PIC is doing SF4 any favors in this one; you've got similar poses and placement and photoshop effects, but then you realize that the option touting an ensemble cast of Chun Li, M. Bison, and Ken is about five pixels away from the option offering Mario, Pikachu, and Samus (plus Link's left shoulder, which is apparently the more popular of the two). It's just a bad situation all around. So if SF4 is in a bad spot and GTA4 is just flat out bad, and considering how PS2 RPGs have been on fire and cult RPGs in generally have been impressing, why not back P4 for the upset? ...nah, just not seeing it. Knights of the Old Republic and Tales of Symphonia are sometimes called "cult" but that's really just an oversimplification of the term; Persona is the dictionary-perfect definition. I'm expecting a showing much more along the lines of Phoenix Wright than what ToS pulled off. And as for Brawl, well, those hyping the game to approach 50% are just crazy IMO. Sure none of these other options are juggernauts, but these are still three very strong, very distinct fanbases we're talking about, and between them they provide a good coverage of the 360 and PS3 and PS2. Anything much above 45 would really impress me out of SSBB. Final answer: * Super Smash Bros. Brawl - 44.22% * Grand Theft Auto IV - 21.38% * Street Fighter IV - 20.97% * Persona 4 - 13.43% But feel free to fuel my GTA hatred by pushing it down to 3rd, SF4! Next Day Review Tee hee, modern Nintendo's trends have been so fun to watch this season. Europe has turned its back on the company, and so have Asia and Australia so everything looks like complete trash beyond the first two hours. But then the ASV hits and BAM, America to the rescue! Last night I said that anything over 45 for Brawl would be super impressive, but I've sort of got to take that back now- never expected SF4 to get SFFed-owned this shockingly bad. (We're down to the final couple updates of this poll and it's still too close to call between SF and Persona, which is just sad beyond belief.) So yeah, nice result for Brawl but I could still easily see myself calling Galaxy the favorite for next round if it can exceed expectations tonight. External Links * Match Updates * Guru Match Predictions * Oracle Match Results • Previous Match • Next Match Category:2009 Spring Contest Matches